The Piped Piper... [Open//Read]

((This is part of a three thread event I'm doing. The Finale will be at the cemetery once this thread or the thread at Downtown is completed.

Earlier that day, on Halloween Day. The sun was beginning to set over the horizon, painting the sky a lovely hue of colors. It was the perfect time to go for a walk in the park and just watch the sun set. It was also a perfect time to pull at the heart strings of passersby with music, as one young lady seemed keen on doing. These street side performers weren't strange sights, many frequented the park to play for everyone's enjoyment. This young lady had set up with her violin and started playing without a second hesitation. The music she played was very enchanting, very dramatic and uplifting. A refreshing change with the spooky and halloween inspired music of the musicians playing earlier that day.

Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary here, everyone listening had been too busy listening to her play that they didn't pay any mind to the fog slowly creeping in. It didn't come rushing in all at once as if she actually summoned it, so no one took alarm. If anything, the fog seemed to be enhancing her music. Her graceful steps and spins while plucking the stings kept everyone's attention. As time passed into the dead of night, she had drawn quite a crowd.

She had also received large tips over time that was now laying at her feet. But she didn't even seem to notice the money there, completely enthralled in her music playing. All that changed was the music itself. The air began to become increasingly colder, prompting discomfort among the crowd as she played. And then completely out of no where, something shot out of the fog and dragged someone down into it. They didn't even have a chance to scream, but their disappearance didn't go unnoticed as another was pulled in. Then another and another, the crowd was now in a panic as they tried to flee but were being cut off by zombie-like creatures appearing up from fog around them. She wasn't distracted now, she was watching with an impish glint in her eye.

She would bring in plenty of souls for her master...

Kane was on patrol when he heard some lovely music being played, he saw a crowd gathering around the violinist and smiled to himself, then carried on. A few minutes later, he heard faint sounds of screaming from the direction he was just in What the heck happened in just 5 minutes!?! he turned back and dashed over at top speed. He soon arrived at the scene of the disturbance and saw zombies coming out and snatching people away, he went down and landed on the ground with a thump.

He didn't know what to do about the zombies, but he knew he could at least help as much people as possible, he started picking people up and taking them out of the fog. He kept on doing this, knowing that he wouldn't be able to save everyone, but at the very least he had to save as much people as possible.

Yang had been on her bike patrolling when it went down. There was just something about Halloween that made things get weird in Jump. Whether it be some kind of actual curse or someone with spooky powers deciding to be dramatic, it never failed. There hadn't been a quiet Halloween in Jump the entire time she'd been there. Riding by, the fog was ominous but it wasn't exactly imposing.

She almost rode on in fact, but she saw the oddest movement through the fog...and then she saw a male figure dash across the park and into the group. She She didn't know any civilians who could move like that. She revved her engine and used a nearby car as a ramp. "Excuuuuuuuse me!"

Riding into the fog itself, she screeched to a halt and hopped off her bike in one fluid motion, punching out one of the zombie-like creatures and pushing civilians out of the way. "Out of the fog people! We have this covered!" She looked to Kane for a moment with an expression that said 'What the hell did I miss exactly?' and then she was grabbed from behind by, say, 4 creatures? Maybe five?

Yang was strong, but she still wasn't exactly heavy. They tried to lift and carry the girl away until she started to pull back. "Hands to yourself Beetlejuice!" She called out, elbowing one in the face with enough force to knock it back a few feet, followed by a kick to the next, and the rest were relatively easy for her to flip right over her shoulder.

Bare feet touched soil and grass as Kiara landed in the thickening fog. There was wailing somewhere inside. Her astral vision was next to useless here, which was awkward for she was on the lookout for something supernatural. There had been portents for weeks regarding an impending disaster on Halloween. Flocks of badgers heading south, shooting stars that misfired, a man farting against the wind. All the usual signs. But now that she was near - a mist prevented her from pin-pointing any potential disturbance.

Slung over her shoulder was her staff. On its end was a cheap pumpkin-themed bucket filled with candy. She had been hungry and the locals were very generous in Jump City. She had bided her time whilst imitating other roving bands of wayfarers. Every house she'd knocked on had complemented her mask and anklet dressings before providing her with sweet confectionary. Kiara opened one now and deposited the chocolate into her mouth. She chewed slowly as half a man came out of the fog, cried bloody murder, before being dragged back inside with an abrupt scream.

"Maybe that has something to do with why I'm here?"

Kiara walked further into the mist. Soon she came across that same man. It turned out he had legs but that bite mark in his shoulder had not been there before. She prodded his inert form with her stick and decided he must be dead. A stray catch of song reached her ears from the distance. People were dying and someone was playing music. Seemed like a good place to start.

The Benighted One stepped over the body and it shot up suddenly, shocking her. The creature tried to take a bite out of her leg. But a blast of astral energy catapulted its head back to earth. Other figures stumbled out of the mists now. Groaning, jinking, deceptively fast. She could hear fighting going on somewhere deeper in the veil. There was a flash of spiritual energy and then Kiara was soaring over the zombies. No point in fighting them. They were but a symptom of the problem here.

Kiara homed in on the musical score until she was somewhere above its sound. She saw movement in the fog and dropped down in front of the violinist. The fronds of her costume had collected droplets from water vapour. "My name is Benighted! Hello? Are those creatures yours?" She felt certain they were, but it didn't hurt to ask. Tzul had the creeping sensation that there were several somethings gathering behind her, "Something's wrong. I think you and your zombies are in very grave danger."

Unfortunately for Yang, the creatures were quite persistent and simply got right back up. Then they tried attacking her again, typically by trying to bite her if they managed to latch onto her. Extreme force would be needed to put them down for good. As for the apparent summoner, she was briefly surprised by Kiara's sudden and slightly dramatic "dropping in."

She offered no response but an impish grin as she skipped back, her tune changing only slightly as more somethings rose out of the fog between them. These were different in that unlike the obvious zombies, their eyes were glowing. And they were letting off a chilling aura about them. Plus the fact they seemed to be armed with modern weapons, seemed to indicate that these things were Horrace's Wights. "Bullets... useless against... blonde..." a Wight gang member stated slowly. Yang's reputation of being overly durable preceded her in the criminal underworld.

"Soul... drain..." another Wight replied. This one looked like an ordinary person apart from the paled skin and glowing eyes. But first they had the newcomer to deal with. So the gangmember drew his pistol and took shots at Kiara while the other Wights charged at Yang. All they'd need to do is get a hand on Yang... and for long enough. It was always a better idea to drain someone critically injured. The chances of them being able to drain Yang while she was in good health was risky. But they had no other choice, they were compelled to serve.

A boy of around 14 screamed in fear as he felt the hands of a zombie on him, but then the zombie's arms are detached at the elbows with a kick and the boy is grabbed and sent away by Kicker. Kicker kicked off against the air to send himself dashing forwards, then kept on going until they had left the fog and dropped him off at the street Run! the boy did, but not before he tried to take a selfie with Kane in the background, but Kane was already gone when he tried to.

Kane came back and looked around, seeing a person that needed help and removed them from the danger zone as well. He kept on doing this again and again. This time, when he returned, he could only see two more civilians alive, the violinist and a weirdly dressed girl. Kane started to make his way towards them, but then the Violinist summoned some more zombies, only these ones were different. Kane remembered, these were just the like the 'wights' used by that guy from before.

Kane was going to go after the violinist, but first he had to get that one civilian to safety, Kane would dash towards her, and unless she resisted or showed that she didn't need saving, he would grab her and try to fly off to safety with her.

Yang was practically buried in the zombies, all chomping away at her. It was kinda annoying, to be honest. And it was starting to hurt a bit. All in all though, she assumed she would have enough to get her through the fight. With her hair igniting beneath the swarm, she stood up. She punted a few of their heads off. "I'm starting to think I'm the only person who hates zombies." She grunted, managing to fight off the standard zombies rather quickly.

Then everything changed when the Wights attacked. These ones didn't even try to bite her, so Yang wasn't going to waste much time on them. She started off hand to hand with them, parrying their grabs and kicking their torsos in, but she was quickly overwhelmed again. "THIS %#!@. AGAIN."

She was trying to fight out of their grip but it was kinda hard, especially with so many of them. And she could feel herself getting...weaker. She put her biotech arm forward, firing the sonic cannon inside it to clear a hole she could break out through. After shaking them off, she was panting. She was actually tired. "Fine." She switched her gauntlets over, she didn't need to be in melee range. She started firing blast after blast of kinetic energy into the horde in front of her, blasting them to pieces with each hit. She really, really hated zombies.

Events escalated, as they were wont to do when the word 'horde' got added to the word 'zombie'. The violinist obviously hadn't put too much stock in Kiara's warning. Probably for good reason. Unearthly terrors commanding nightmare armies didn't often have bad things happen to them. When you went bump in the night, that thing lurking around the corner was probably your best friend. It was an intoxicating sense of invincibility. The Benighted One was here to break such illusions. As long as she wasn't broken first.

Kiara back-peddled as a new breed of the undead emerged between them. Maybe a more informed mage could have told you what these new nasties were, she couldn't. She readied her astral defences but faltered as a gun was levelled at her. No way of stopping that. "Wait! You don't understand-" The wraith fired at the pleading figure. Tzul was knocked sideways as Kane intervened.

She'd dropped her staff in the confusion. It had all happened so fast. One moment she was staring down her demise and the next she was being spirited away through mist. She clung to the young man who had saved her life as her brain tried to catch up. When it did she fought against the hero's forward momentum by attempting to levitate her own body with astral energy. It would feel as if a parachute had been opened. Kiara's outline would glow a dull purple.

"Guh. Thanks. C-Can you put me down now?" Within the fog she could make out the outline of a park-keeper's mobile waste disposal unit and a juniper bush, "No seriously. I'm a shaman. I sought out what is happening here tonight. On my head be it." Though she did not see the ground, Kiara felt the crinkle of leaves underfoot as she was set down.

She bowed formally to the hero before holding her arm out to open air, "Thank you, Sir. I am the Benighted One. I have been pursuing the omens of a great evil since last Summer. You must allow me to aid you with what is occurring here. I am sure together, we will be successful in sparing this city whatever unimaginable horror awaits it." The girl tried to smile reassuringly at that.

"I deal with this sort of stuff all the time. Trust me, I'm a professional." On cue, Kiara's staff spiralled through the fog and towards her outstretched arm. It then missed her open palm and smacked her in the face, "Owww! Ow-ow-ow-ow! Oh gosh - why!?" She held her face in both hands.

Kiara was an unknown element the Violinist did not fancy messing with until she had more of an idea of what she'd be up against. Guess she'd never know after Kicker stole her away from a bullet. Well, that just left Yang who may as well been Deus Ex Machina. It was hard to tell through the fog (more so in the case of Yang and Kane) that while the zombies had been turning others, souls of the departed were soaring off toward the same direction. This was more prominent in the case of the Wights who had managed to siphon off some of Yang's soul. Though her spiritual energy was still invisible to the naked eye, it wouldn't go unnoticed.

But the fact she was laying waste to everything would not end well for her real fast. The zombies were more or less meat shields at this point, the Wights had more of a will to avoid being blasted to pieces. But the more Wights Yang offed, the better for her master. Or atleast that was what she had been told by Horrace himself. She still didn't know what he planned to do with all of these souls, but hoped that part of Yang's soul would count for atleast fifty souls.

As she continued playing, she seemed to be edging toward a specific direction. Hopefully her master's other conspirator wouldn't be delayed. Deciding not to chance it, more Wights sprang up from the ground before her. These were... very ancient, most of which looked more like skeletons then people any more. "Oi! I didn't sign up for this," a skeleton with a single glowing eye commented to one of his friends.

"She just bloody tore them blokes to shreds she did," the friend retorted. "I didn't agree to be turned just to be put in the grave by some girl," he added.

"Quick, let's go that way and pretend we didn't see a thing," the first one whispered as the rest of the summoned Wights ran toward Yang, who was the only one still within visible range. Didn't Kane know not to split up from watching horror movies?

The thunderous gallops of hooves were definitely audible over the music of the violinist now. Dark shapes appearing next as armored soldiers came barreling toward Kane and Kiara with weapons drawn. Some of the mounted raiders from Downtown had broken off from the rest of the horde, picking off targets of opportunity along the way until they set their sights on Kiara and Kane. Some would eventually continue on passed the two, flanking Yang.

Well, the civillian almost got gunned down, luckily Kane was pretty good at all this nick of time stuff and he got her out of danger just in time. Kane would keep on going, but then she suddenly levitated upwards, stopping his momentum. He blinked in surprise, but did as asked and touched down on the ground, she then explained that she was a shaman and that she was here to stop what was going on. Kane thought to himself for a second Alright, but try not to get hurt.

She then brought her staff over to her, only for it to hit her in the face, Kane frowned in concern and patted her shoulder Are you sure you're a pro? You don't seem like you can handle this. But, it seemed that for now he was stuck with her, because at that moment a bunch of soldiers on horses came barreling over. Kane jumped into the air at about the height the riders were at and used his powers to stay in the air by hopping on the spot, he then would go to kick riders off of their mounts as best as he could, he'd rather that his enemies were all on the ground and in a small area than on a mount which they can use to flank him.

((OOC: Sorry Izzy, want to keep this thread moving.))

The thunderous hoof-beats of a cavalry charge droned through the fog. As a rule fog is deceptive, both in visual and auditory means. So it was sooner than expected that the unwholesome destriers steered through Kiara and Kane's perimeter. They were almost on top of them when Kane rushed into action, toppling riders left and right. Weapons swung and firearms unloaded, narrowly missing Kiara as she dropped to ground.

A group of horsemen swept passed them, obviously set upon some alternate destination. Benighted propped herself up on one elbow just in time to see a riderless horse gallop to her position and rear itself threateningly. Its flailing hooves threatened to stomp her into paste. As the stallion descended with its sinewy power a blast of astral energy intercepted the blow. The undead horse shot skyward, crying out in animalistic terror. Kiara stood with her staff and focused her gaze above. She caught a glimpse of floating lights. She hadn't seen them before in this obfuscating mist.

"Souls..." They were lost to the fog almost as soon as she had seen them. For the first time she considered a sinister origin for the weather phenomenon. Maybe it was intended as some sort of straw, sucking up wayward souls as and when they were created in this night of terror. Her subconscious mind moved in ways that she herself did not grasp. But by the end of it she had an inkling of the wider situation.

In her stupor she was almost gunned down by another wight. She countered with a blast of astral energy and then floated backwards to Kane, "This isn't an invasion. This is a ritual. The more we dawdle, the longer we brawl, the more powerful the underlying force becomes. I think we should vacate this arena." They were vastly outnumbered anyway, the unhorsed riders didn't seem any worse for wear after taking a tumble.

And Kiara had hit the nail on the head- more or less. It wasn't technically a ritual, but that was a moot point as the undead shrugged off their injuries and resumed the attack on Kane and Kiara. Any Wight or undead apart from the zombies slain "gave up the ghost" as Kiara witnessed. The Violinist by this time had put enough distance between herself and the others that she felt comfortable enough to stop playing. Yang evidently seemed to be preoccupied fighting off the next wave of Wights and presumably the horsemen that came to flank her.

The sudden lack of music would mostly be noticed over the sound of hooves, weapons clashing, and yells of combat. The Fog remained, but without it's source it would logically would not last indefinitely. The violinist sneaked out of the park with the aid of the fog when a limo drove up beside her. The rear window on the driver's side slid down revealing Horrace's fellow conspirator, Jack. "Need a lift?" he smirked at the violinist as a door popped open for her...

After a large amount of the riders had been knocked off of their horses, they all went after the two on foot, but all it took was one to fight them, that one being Kane. It was true that being knocked off their horses didn't take them out, but having their heads knocked off with kicks did the trick. Kane was a blur, taking out one every second, but it was true that they were seriously outnumbered, so when Kiara suggested it, he would blur to her side and grab her.

He jumped into the air and went over to where the violinist was, very concerned that the music had stopped. He went back, dropping kiara off and looking around, but even with the cover produced by the fog, he could tell she was gone. He turned back to Kiara Sorry for grabbing you so suddenly, we had to get out of there fast. What now? How do we get rid of the remaining zombies?

Kiara squeaked as she was spirited away for the second time today. This time she kept a hold of her staff and grabbed Kane's hoody for balance, resigning herself to be transported. He was certainly very powerful. Kiara hadn't met any metahumans before. Her father had tried explaining about them once. And maybe there was something in their randomly manifesting abilities. But it was a secret Kiara felt was safe from human scrutiny for many years to come. She was hence not more than passingly interested in them.

Put back on her feet, Benighted adjusted her ringlets and then went to stand where the violinist had been, "Working on it." She crouched, brought her hand through the soil, and then put the dirt to her tongue. Well that told her nothing. She spat, then stretched and looked into the fog bank. It was thinning, but she couldn't spot any more spectral lights.

"I saw souls. Floating in the mists. Heading somewhere... vaguely important." She assumed. Her eyes darted back and forth before she came to a decision, "The remaining zombies don't concern me. We need to be where those souls are going. The only issue is... I can't see any more." Kiara turned back to Kane and went to hold his hand, "I must ask you a favour Jumpy Man. Please may I borrow your soul? I want to follow it, you see. It will only be for a short while. And there's every chance I will be able to put it back into your body when we are finished." Maybe, you never know, it would be a nice bonus, "Oh please. I fear we are running out of time."

The Limo that pulled up had by now taken off, the sound of tires screeching definitely audible in the slowly waning fog. It would still be some time before the fog full dissipated. "That went smoother then he let on. He anticipated much more... resistance then this," Jack remarked as everyone settled into their seats. "So what's your story? I don't hearing anything about someone with a magical violin," Jack questioned his new passenger curiously.

"I'm not from around here, actually. Lord Horrace is simply one of my teachers," she replied anxiously. Though this was part of the plan, she couldn't help but feel very intimidated with her current company. Particularly Jack himself.

"I see. So it's safe to assume this isn't a public school. Am I right?" Jack pressed, giving her a piercing stare.

"Yes," she replied with a guarded tone. It went without saying that you shouldn't go around telling everyone you're part of a school intended to teach the next generation of villains. She had no idea who Jack was or what he was capable of, but anyone with the nickname of "Bloody Jack" deserved caution.

"For the record I could force you to tell me more. But then that old bag of bones would take offense to that. And it would be a bad idea for our business agreement to turn sour. So relax my dear," Jack assured her with a grin that did not reassure her.